


And Death Shall Have No Dominion

by Chromi



Series: Deuce-centric [7]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Character Death, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Depression, Emotional Sex, Falling In Love, Hurt, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Medication, Mental Breakdown, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Sex, Suicide, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, in such a loose sense, seriously pay attention to the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:14:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22212394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromi/pseuds/Chromi
Summary: After deciding to heal properly rather than tear each other apart, Marco and Deuce visit Ace's grave to begin anew.And from there, everything changes for them.The continuation ofHit Me With Your Words.
Relationships: Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco/Masked Deuce
Series: Deuce-centric [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576678
Comments: 17
Kudos: 30
Collections: Dicks Out For Ace’s Death





	And Death Shall Have No Dominion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Irrelevancy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrelevancy/gifts), [wormhourdeluxe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wormhourdeluxe/gifts).



> Please do take note of the tags before reading.
> 
> Thank you _so_ much to Irrelevancy, wormhourdeluxe, and midnightluck for your continuous support throughout this ♥

It was jarring at first.

Absurdly so, if he were honest.

To lie peaceful with another who was not Ace; to thumb along the line of a jaw that he had not bruised in his grip the night previous, or to caress soft pale hair that had not been wrung tight between fingers to bow back the spine. To simply look – to watch how Deuce's lips parted in his sleep, his long lashes – longer than any Marco had seen before, he had noted on their first night as a _couple_ rather than _a couple of bereft souls_ – fluttering against his skin as he dreamed. A relationship in reverse, Marco had privately called it; one where the most extreme of sexual acts conducted in near pitch-black were deemed normal and regular, but the mere thought of making love under candlelight initially caused Deuce to recoil and shudder with embarrassment.

But it had come at a price. This easy, slow rise into lucidity had come about only after they had reached the bedrock of the human soul, pulling and twisting into each other's wounds in their fierce attempts to stifle the mutual voices in their heads that deemed they should have died in Ace's place – regardless of what both had said, this had been what they wanted. Lay the blame elsewhere; assuage the vicious, boiling pain that continuously threatened to bubble over and destroy.

Marco never wanted to revisit that place inside of him. _Ever_. And he would ensure that Deuce stayed far from it as well, no matter the cost.

Standing before the graves, bare hand held tight in Deuce’s once the gloves were pocketed to trail touches to freezing marble, something had been torn from Marco that he hadn't even known he’d possessed. He doubted he would ever be able to forget it. The howl of pain. The crumpling of Deuce's form as he sank to his knees, indifferent to the mud churned up by the previous night's rain. The long, shockingly bright lines his nails raked down his own cheeks, clutching at his face as if to gain some form of traction over his physical self he could calm the mental.

It hadn't worked.

Of course it hadn't worked.

Silently, lower lip bitten hard between teeth that trembled with his own suppressed sobs, Marco had cupped Deuce's face to heal gently. He was shrugged off – of _course_ , the stubborn, hurting _fool_ – yet Marco persevered.

 _It's okay now_ , he had said, willing himself to accept his own words that threatened to be drowned under Deuce's anguish, _tell him you love him. Tell him how much you miss him. He'll hear you. He'll know_.

Neither believed him. Both gained some semblance of relief from the lie, regardless.

That night had been different; the start of what was to unfold into a story of healing hearts and finding their way back, Marco’s romantism mused. That night he had made love rather than fucked, hands gentle to sweat-slicked skin that burned so unlike Ace's. Where this time Marco mouthed and licked tender promises of steady recovery to the curve of Deuce's neck, clutched his racing heart to the brand of his father, and rolled deep up into his body, swallowing his every desperate sound of an orgasm coaxed from him rather than ripped. Yet still the tears had followed the sated gasp of a slow-building climax, falling wet to Marco's cheeks when Deuce shook in his arms, holding him tight around the neck and sobbing that he was sorry.

Always sorry.

Always hurting.

Well, not anymore.

Not if Marco could help it.

* * *

The days that followed brought about a change in Deuce that Marco found himself enjoying. Gone were the glares, the judging, the hateful little _snorts_ whenever Marco voiced an opinion that wasn't shared by the other doctor. Now saw only encouragement gazing at him, a stance that spoke of open acceptance and trust in his abilities as captain, finally sharing with the other commanders that implicit devotion. Commander meetings began to slide back into something almost resembling _fun_ , despite the crew’s pressingly dire circumstances, like they had been before everything had gone so gut-wrenchingly _wrong._ The casual teasing returned to the meeting room, seeing Deuce integrate more smoothly into his role as head doctor and first division commander. He would keep it, he confirmed when asked discretely after one particular meeting – he would keep this title, even though their perverse powerplay was over.

"I'll make you proud," he whispered to Marco, not meeting his eyes in favor of watching Haruta clear away the chairs, "I'll look after your division in exchange for you taking care of all of us."

The sex that followed – fast, desperate, breathless in the store closet off the side of the meeting room, filled with boxes of paper and pens and who really cared what else – saw Deuce arching away from the wall, his spine an elegant curve, shoulders rubbed sore against the wood, clinging to Marco for dear life with his thighs wrapped around his waist, his moans and cries so _very_ eagerly devoured.

 _His_ name falling from Deuce's lips again and again, panted into his neck, his mouth, with each snap and roll of his hips into that delicious, rhythmic tightening.

Not Ace's.

Never again to be Ace's.

* * *

Somewhere along the way – somewhere lost to the nights where nothing existed but their shared pain, their unique, new setup tinged with the hint of something _softer_ – Marco’s proposition of ‘trying regular sex’ morphed into ‘let’s call each other _partner_.’ A painful notion for him, certainly, and one definitely shared in kind with Deuce.

But not something that Marco could find himself disliking.

Not when it was, apparently, deemed important enough for Deuce to sit writing about long into the night, successfully convinced that his _partner_ had fallen asleep.

The tentative touch to his shoulder in the absence of the pen’s scratching was welcomed with a secret, heartfelt smile.

* * *

Things changed subtly over the coming weeks.

Marco began to notice things that hadn’t occurred to him before. Out of nowhere, it seemed, he became intensely aware of the fact that Deuce’s smile was slightly lopsided to the right, tugging in tighter than on the left. When reaching for something, he favored his left side despite being right-handed. How he would tap at his chin with the end of a pen as he thought about something, frowning and pursing his lips.

Little things. Insignificant things. Everything that made him _him_ and that Marco had never cared to notice—

His hair catching in the wind on deck, flattened back down by gloved hands and a sigh of irritation. The fine hairs on the backs of his arms, pale and delicate as frost, prickling under the ghosting of Marco’s breath. How he ate in sequence, always – picking around his favorite parts so that he could enjoy them last.

Unbeknownst to Deuce, he was observed to be watching and learning Marco’s smaller habits, too.

* * *

The smiles came honest far more regularly these days.

A smile that was gentle and natural, lighting up his whole face each time their eyes met. Flashed to him over dinner – waiting for him in the medical bay – offered each time he bent to press a kiss to waiting, parted lips.

Deuce really was far more attractive when he smiled.

Unfortunately, Marco felt his heart _clench_ out of nowhere when he caught it directed at the nurses one morning as the younger doctor dragged himself out of surgery.

_Oh dear._

* * *

A hand shot out from the sheets one morning as Deuce rose to go stumble in the direction of the medical bay for his 4am start.

"Don't," he scolded, snatching his wrist back out of Marco's hold to a displeased sound from under the heap of blankets, "I need to shower first. I haven't got time."

"Just five minutes."

" _No."_

"Okay. Three."

He wasn't given a choice. Manhandled with talon-like fingers tickling at his hips, Deuce was bodily hauled back into bed with a bitten off shriek, clamping a palm to his mouth to muffle himself.

"Just a quick one."

"It's not even _four in the morning_ , how are you so—"

Even in the dim light filtering through the curtain drawn over the porthole, Marco could make out the furious blush that lit up Deuce's unmasked face when he guided his hand to cup his erection—

" _Oh_. Well, then—"

—and the manner in which he _twitched_ back into the pressure of Marco's fingers rubbing obstinately at his rim, still slick with the lubricant of a mere few hours ago.

"Fine. Quickly."

Capturing his lips before he'd even finished his sentence, Marco made quick work of his boyfriend, hunger roiling insatiably to demand he licked, touched, and felt every part of him come undone before he was left alone in the dark again. The call to _consume_ , to taste Deuce’s sweat where it clung to his neck, to watch with near wild, fevered adoration while dragging him down onto his cock in tandem with his fast-paced riding, was quenched. Head thrown back, bared and pristine and _goodsogood_ , demands of _faster, harder, thereMarcoplease, giving_ himself over to the orgasm that painted Whitebeard’s mark with a harsh, dry sob.

He was Marco’s to protect, and Marco’s to hold through his own release, stuttering a shaky breath to Deuce’s cheek.

Long after Deuce had managed to wriggle and break free from the bedroom with a flash of an insincere frown over his shoulder, his hair a frantic mess and mask entirely forgotten, Marco lay in silence with his whirling thoughts. His own shift wasn't to start until midday where he took over from Deuce, keeping him busy until late dinner time. _The captain of_ this _fleet still performs his old duties, thank you very much._

An entire sixteen hours in which he would be without Deuce, save for the ten-minute hand-over period that would force them to speak only of work.

He'd see to it that the nurses re-worked their shift patterns after this week. Sixteen hours was entirely too long.

* * *

"Would you like to go on a date?"

The question obviously caught him by complete surprise, earning a cough and a splutter into his cup of coffee. That mahogany gaze lifted, blinking confusedly up to meet Marco's sincere blue.

"A what?"

"A date. We'll be weighing anchor in port in a couple hours. I'd like to take you out for lunch and sightseeing."

He should have expected it. Marco should have known that Deuce's expression would cloud over instantly at the mention of behaving like a proper couple, of neglecting their duties and positions within the world, the crew. Rejection struck him immediately – that cold fear that perhaps Deuce was still not ready to move on and away from what he had never had in the first place, eternally caught in the web of sorrow and love for his captain that he had never voiced, never even _tried_ to take for himself. Marco didn't want what they had to be a sham, though; Deuce's company brought relief from the weight of guilt that had fastened itself to Marco's stomach, ever-present and threatening to drag him down, yet hindered in its quest to destroy by the younger man's very presence. The respite from the hate; the gradual erosion of the bile and venom that had once driven Marco to slap and to injure whenever Deuce called for it— initiated by, and then alleviated just as easily by, the same man.

And, if he may be so bold, Marco found himself _feeling_ something that reminded him of Ace when he was with Deuce. Those early-day flutterings in his stomach were ever-present, making him feel impossibly lighter and excited for time alone with him – with or without clothes on.

It should have startled him. It really should have made him draw back and stop, that instinct to guard himself against a loss like Ace's from ever happening again.

But there was no risk of loss with Deuce; at least, none that Marco's keen mind could see. Fine lineage, yes, but one devoid of any pirate kings; a bounty that hugely paled in comparison with his own, with the rest of the commanders (disregarding how it had _jumped_ the moment Deuce's position became known to the world); an aversion to battle, inclined to stick behind the scenes to treat the wounded, to help, to heal where Marco could not.

This relationship was safe.

Marco wouldn't lose Deuce.

Without question, Marco would continue to provide whatever it was that Deuce required until the end of his days.

"I'd like that," came the quiet, surprising response spoken into the cup of hot coffee, refusing to meet Marco's eyes. "Maybe we could go for a walk by the river; I've heard there's some amazing architecture in the town we'll be stopping at."

A change of pace they had not indulged in before; their first true foray into behaving as couples should do.

That night, after a wonderful day spent in a town far more beautiful than either could accurately describe (as Deuce had lamented upon bringing out his notebook), Marco felt no inclination to hear his own name screamed into the pillows on the hotel room bed.

Deuce, it seemed, didn’t want that either, falling asleep mid-description of the dog he had had as a boy instead, cheek pressed to Marco’s chest… that seemed to expand tenfold as he stroked at Deuce’s bare shoulders, fuzzy and content with the memory of Deuce’s quiet pleasure at being presented with a white lily by a kindly old florist in town earlier on.

White suited him.

* * *

“What’re you writing?”

A foot planted itself firmly into his abdomen as he leaned closer to look at the notebook, keeping him well away.

“A story,” Deuce offered unhelpfully, not looking up from where his pen skittered over the paper.

“Well, yes, I’d guessed that much. You’ve been working on it for ages. What’s it about?”

A smile curved Marco’s lips as Deuce’s eyes flashed up at him, unimpressed.

“It’s about a bird who never knew when to keep his beak out of other people’s business,” he quipped, raising an eyebrow at Marco’s smirk, “in the end he gets roasted and enjoyed for dinner because he got too curious.”

“Sounds like a pretty dumb bird to me,” Marco said easily, setting Deuce’s booted foot back down on the floor with ease and sliding in closer, resting against the arm of the chair.

“Oh, he’s the dumbest, for sure,” Deuce muttered, snapping the notebook shut and stuffing it into his inside jacket pocket, “never knows when to let things go.”

“What does his bunny friend think of him?” Marco elaborated on the fake tale quite happily, thoroughly enjoying Deuce’s exasperation. “He’s got a bunny friend, right? A bunny who cares about him a lot?”

Deuce wrinkled his nose, pulling a face that Marco found _far_ too endearing. “The bunny ate him after he got shut in the oven,” he played along. “He wasn’t bothered, though, because now the bird wouldn’t be able to irritate him anymore.” He looked up at Marco quickly, his brows pulled into a deep frown. “Wait. A bunny? Why a bunny?”

Marco shrugged, “because you fuck like a rabbit in heat.”

“ _Me?!”_ Deuce barked, gaining the attention of the nurses they shared an office with. He lowered his voice to a hissed whisper, clearly under the impression that he sounded threatening, and leaned closer. “ _I’m_ not the one who keeps throwing us into store rooms and bathrooms at every opportunity!”

“Oh, you should try it – catch me off guard once in a while.”

“I don’t think there’s anything I could do to catch _you_ off guard,” Deuce huffed as Marco leaned down to kiss his cheek, grinning, “not with your observation haki being what it is.”

“I guess,” Marco said, kissing Deuce again, this time a little more insistently, dipping lower to catch his ear, “but I promise I’ll act surprised if you ever _do_ decide to spread your legs open over a crate of—”

_“Shut up!”_

* * *

He was falling in love.

The realisation rendered him breathless one morning when he caught himself tucking Deuce’s hair behind his ear at breakfast, taking the opportunity to cup his face and thumb away a fleck of cereal that had stuck to his cheek.

Ace could never be replaced. They had talked about this, acknowledged it and decided to never try to even _entertain_ the notion of truly, completely moving on from him. That was asking for the impossible, setting them up for very definite failure.

But Marco’s heart was big – big enough to carve out a space beside where Ace would always reside.

Big enough to accept that Deuce was no longer in any way just a stand-in for Ace. He was his own person – _loved_ as his own person. So different to Ace in just about every conceivable way, right down to how he displayed affection.

And Marco, without meaning to, without even _realising_ at first, stopped trying to compare the two somewhere along the way, content in loving the memory of all that Ace had been while simultaneously loving all that Deuce had to offer in the present.

No more mind games.

No more sadness and grief inflicted upon each other like talons of steel and ice.

That morning that the realisation struck him, Marco noticed that he could now _feel_ Deuce as he had felt Ace, as he had felt Pops. A physical presence in his mind, almost, like a particularly pleasant intrusive thought that wouldn’t leave him no matter what he did. An extension of the observation haki, Pops had once told him; the unconscious ability to locate and feel the presence of a loved one – a truly, deeply loved one with which one held a special, emotional connection – when close enough. Something that he had missed since the death of his father and his lover; something that he had forgotten even existed as the months had drawn on.

“Hey,” Marco said quietly, trying to keep his instant excitement in check as he squatted to bring himself level with Deuce, smoothing his palm down to lay directly over his partner’s heart, “can you feel me too?”

A snort; an incredulous look as Deuce, fresh off his night shift, plowed on resolutely with his breakfast. “I’m not touching your dick at the table, Marco.”

Ah. Perhaps not.

* * *

It was always surprising when he was reminded of just how fragile other people were. Physically, mentally, emotionally – everyone he knew crumbled with far less effort than he ever did. Phoenix or not, it took phenomenal amounts of effort to break Marco in any regard.

He had learned how to work with Ace’s insecurity and navigate around that deep ravine that ran like a scar across his heart. Ace, once the truth had come out, had been a relatively simple code to crack, in that you _couldn’t_. Not really. There was no changing the circumstances of his birth, nor the hatred that the world had held for Roger and – by extension, if they had ever found out while he still sailed free – him. There was only love to give, and love to receive, and total dedication that would never fail, even when Ace contested it (as he had done so many a time).

Ace, realistically speaking, had been easy to _know_. The problems were always the same; the relapses into depression easy to recognise. And the solution, Marco had found, was that there _was_ no solution, only symptom control for a terminal disease.

Deuce, on the other hand, was far more difficult.

Deuce, Marco soon discovered, was just as susceptible as he to dark thoughts when lying awake in the early hours of the morning after Marco left for the 4am starts.

Only Deuce, unlike Marco, allowed them to fester. Allowed them to grow; to expand and devour, turning him inside-out at the seams and dragging him into a quagmire from which there was little possibility of escape, entrenching him deeper and deeper into blame, loathing, and _remembering_.

The first time Marco noticed that Deuce was deep into one of these phases of heightened anxiety, it was already too late. True understanding always did seem to come in the most hopeless of times.

Nothing had seemed amiss during the day; Deuce had been perfectly pleasant at lunch, laughing with Vista and Rakuyo as they colourfully narrated their recent close shave with a fleet of marines. All had appeared well when Marco had caught him later on in the medical bay, asking for his assistance with a severe volvulus that his healing power couldn’t hope to handle alone, tearing his commander away from that pocket-sized notebook he was seldom seen without.

All it took was one simple mistake, a lapse in thought— something that Marco could have never seen coming. Had it been any other day, Marco suspected that Deuce would have been fine, if a little shaken. But not that day. Not when, unbeknownst to anyone, his mind was already saturated with painful memories of his deceased captain.

“Oi, Commander,” one of the first division had called to Deuce after surgery, wiping his hands on his scrubs, “you ever gonna tell us your real name or what?”

It came out of nowhere, completely unprompted, and it was out in the open like a great, infected wound after a grand reveal before Marco could even begin to whip round on the spot to fling something heavy at the total idiot of a human.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” a second one piped up, but Marco didn’t see who it was, his attention solely focused on how Deuce straightened up, alert, his eyes unnaturally bright, “Ace gave you your name, didn’t he? Weird how you still use it, since he’s—”

The delicate silver surgical instruments clattered to the floor as the tray holding them was flung at the second idiot, hitting him square in the jaw and knocking him down with the force of the projectile. Shaking, jaw clenched in fury and arm still raised, Marco turned to find Deuce had already left the room.

* * *

Everyone imagined a breakdown to be something extreme, like the soul suddenly stripped naked to the world in the form of screamed misery or rocking in silence, hands clasped to knees, appearing for all to know without confirmation that here sat one who had shattered.

No one – no one who had experienced them first hand, at the very least – ever expected them to masquerade in the form of a smile; the touch of fingers to flesh that dissolved into the slide of a palm over muscle and bone.

The words _I’m fine_ were cliché, yet readily believed by those who sought to believe heedlessly, to follow whatever false flame that sparked into life before them and allow it to guide them on—

 _I’m fine._ The first words that Deuce uttered when Marco caught up with him in their bedroom, directed there by the link in his heart that pulled him where he was needed most at this stage in his life.

A breakdown was a gradual thing, coming to a close with the figurative straw that ends it all—

—this here was Deuce’s.

The shout that followed the lie tore through Marco like blades of ice, causing him to stumble and falter at the sight of Deuce fisting his own hair in an almost manic, fevered attempt to gain some form of control over what was clearly being ripped apart within him.

“We’re past this,” Marco said, yet it left him as _begging_ , _pleading_ with the other man to _please, for god’s sake, don’t allow yourself to hurt like this_ , “we’re okay now.”

“ _I know._ ” For no one knew better than he, Marco figured out far, _far_ too late, that yes, he _was_ past this, dammit, because he was _expected_ to be, not because he actually _was_.

Not like Marco.

Wild-eyed and sweating, Deuce turned to him like he had only just realised that Marco was in the room. He closed the distance between them, flinging his arms around Marco’s neck and pulling him in so fast that the vile call to joke that _hey look, you_ can _catch me off guard_ rose to the surface for one abysmal second. Lips crushed to lips, carrying none of the warmth that had sunk into Marco’s skin ever since laying themselves bare and sacrificed at the altar of Ace’s tombstone.

“I’m fine.” His fingers shook as badly as his voice as he undressed Marco, seemingly naïve to how Marco did nothing to help him in his endeavour. “I just—I just lost control for a moment. I’m fine. I’m good. Please don’t punish them. Just. Marco, please. _Please_. _Marco_.” Shirt discarded, clammy palm slapped to the back of his neck again, shallow, desperate breaths mouthed to his throat— “Mar-Marco, please, fuck me. _Please_.”

Warning bells; echoing, incessant, and snapping him back into motion, dispelling the startled, horrified _freeze_ response that Deuce’s total loss of composure had drawn from him. The demanding was back and so was Marco’s sickness that followed like clockwork.

His palm was grabbed and forcibly pressed to Deuce’s cheek; his thumb curled to wrap around his chin in an unpleasant reflection of a time he was far happier forgetting.

“Fuck me. Hit me.”

And there it was.

“I deserve it. I—” fingers scrabbled at the back of his hand in an attempt to force him into action, to _make_ him slap and inflict pain on the man he loved. “ _Marco_ —” an order, crisp and commanding and _shouted_ , “don’t be _nice_ , don’t be—” still, he refused to move, to speak, cool blue locked with blazing bramble, “ _hit me, Marco._ Make me forget him like you have.”

Nails dug into the back of his neck, trying to claw him in closer, yet Marco stood fast, misery coursing through him at having to witness something so devastating. The stab at his own acceptance of fate’s cruel ways was sidestepped easily, knowing that the words came from a dark place that wouldn’t exist if he had just done his job properly and _healed_ Deuce as he had intended – as he had thought he was accomplishing.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he murmured around the lump rising in his throat, smoothing back hair turned damp with the cold sweat of panic, that which continued to dot Deuce’s forehead before thumbed away in a broad sweep, “because you’ve done nothing wrong. Ace wouldn’t want you to—”

A flash of a snarl; his boots rang heavy to the floorboards and carried him from Marco’s hold without warning, white fingers gnarled back tight into hair at the base of his skull, seeking to hurt and to anchor and to _tear_. “Ace,” Deuce seethed through clenched teeth, rendering Marco _scared_ (not for himself, but for what pain Deuce might turn inwards) and momentarily panicked, “wouldn’t want to be _dead_. How could you know what he would want in a situation like this?” A shaking palm was pressed to his forehead, a long, heavy sigh exhaled through his nose. “Please,” he urged through forced calm, “I don’t care how you do it. I don’t _care_. Just make it stop. Put an end to it. Fuck it out of me. Beat it out of me. Carve it out like the cancer it is. I can’t carry this guilt anymore, Marco.”

There was no need for clarification, the wound all too obvious and exposed, bleeding direct from Deuce’s heart out to sodden his surgical scrubs. The weight of the choking guilt that came with sincerely falling for Marco in return, he knew, crushing Deuce where it had only buoyed Marco to rise from his own ashes of remorse and start again. Where he was healing – where he had assumed so wrongly that Deuce was too – Deuce was decaying from the inside-out.

“We’ll get you something for depression,” Marco said gently, the call to touch, to hold, to wrap Deuce in wings of cyan and gold flames until he was restored to the man that the mask portrayed daily dragging him to stroke along Deuce’s back to a full-body _flinch_ , “something to help curb this.”

“I don’t _need_ —”

“You _do_.” He did. God, did he ever.

_“Don’t say that!”_

A slap, the sound ringing throughout the room.

Another in quick succession, self-inflicted as the first, raising a smarting red hand print to pale cheek.

His wrist caught tight in horror as he drew back a third time, restraining him.

The world spun as Marco pushed, following Deuce down onto the bed behind him and pinning him by his wrists in an almost perfect rendition of déjà vu from months previous when all had come to a stop. Straddling his hips to keep him from thrashing right off the mattress, Marco held his partner down through his screams, his sobs, his vicious, frenzied attempt at beating himself where Marco would not. There was no hope of throwing Marco off; there was no universe in which Marco would allow any modicum of harm to come to Deuce ever again.

The seconds dragged long as Marco waited patiently for him to wear himself out – time for him to calm through to fatigue alone, muscles shaking from adrenaline-fuelled overuse and breath coming in gasping, wet gulps. That perpetual refusal to meet Marco’s eyes, which, again, Marco belatedly recognised for what it truly was, tears streaming down Deuce’s cheeks to collect along his jaw, drip to his neck.

“Deuce,” Marco tried, and when Deuce didn’t respond beyond faltered, hitching breaths of sobs that had begun to quell, he continued, “we can fix this. This is something that we can overcome. This is just a setback, that’s all.”

Mahogany met cobalt, though fleetingly, and Marco was struck with the impression that behind the mask of sudden, silent calm, Deuce’s world continued to fall apart.

“Don’t say _we_ ,” Deuce hissed, voice still shaky yet growing in strength with each word, “like you’re still stuck right here with me.”

Hours passed; the rage brewed and subsided under Marco’s hold once again, tearing through Deuce like a storm ravaging the seas, giving way to daybreak and spelling the lie of survival and regrowth. Only to tear down further into skin, flesh, muscle and bone and heart and soul, back arched into hatred and teeth bared in the terrifying, blinding urge to _hurt_ none but himself, nails raking to blue-tinged skin that would not yield to pleas of _I deserve to repent_.

But no storm lasted forever, despite how hopeless life seems in the midst of one.

And this too would pass.

This too would pass.

 _This, too, was going to pass_.

* * *

If Ace had been the sun, then Deuce was the moon; an elegant contrast in most all aspects. The control to the impulse. The calming touch to the fevered rage. The blunt and honest to the secrets and fear.

If Deuce was the moon, then the legend of the rabbit within it suited him unlike anything else. The sacrifice; the willingness to die for the sake of another. _I offer my life to you without question – I seek nothing in reward but your survival_. The casting of one’s own life into the fire – the desire to _give_ and to prostrate oneself before another and _demand_ that he takes, that he feeds, that he lives on and on because the rabbit was willing to die for him.

If Deuce was the rabbit of legend, then his journey should have seen him end wrapped in immortality rather than grief, preserved in memory and tales to be whispered fond to the lips of the innocent, forever by the side of he who the rabbit tried to surrender his remaining time for.

Instead, his journey brought him into the clutches of immortality of a different breed, wings folded around his prone body and cradled close to the chest of a phoenix so vivid it illuminated the cage of a room in which they lay. Feathers of warm flames, rippling cyan and azure and gold to drip healing comfort along trembling skin, mending not the physical but restoring _(attempting, wishing)_ the heart that bled lyrics of loss and sorrow.

A heart that was torn so dramatically between the phoenix of present and the flame of past.

“The moon,” Deuce whispered into the dancing flames, “is nothing but a barren rock floating in space without the sun to light it.” A mirthless laugh; the press of sodden cheeks to fire that licked and failed to heal, to heal, _to heal—_ “how apt.”

* * *

Morning arrived late, following the final lull that dragged them under to curl beneath the sheets and entwine limbs, fingers, hearts. Morning saw Deuce relaxed and apologetic, agreeable and pliant to Marco’s further suggestion of something to help allay the shadows cast thick over his mind, his heart. Marco’s own guilt did not lessen upon returning the kiss that smoothed to his lips, nor did it subside under the cool glide of fingertips to spine. He hadn’t noticed; he hadn’t _seen_ what was now so starkly evident in the person he was supposed to care for. Was it love that blinkered him, disallowing him to see the signs that he knew well? For depression was nothing new to him either personally or professionally, and yet he hadn’t seen the forest for the trees.

The aversion to eye contact. Periods of low mood. Writing as a means of making sense of his feelings, at a guess—

All of which didn’t add up in the face of how _happy_ and _peaceful_ Deuce had seemed within himself – with _him_.

Maybe these things weren’t textbook.

Marco didn’t want to think about it.

Especially not when those fingers to his back trailed lower, sweeping over sensitive skin to tease into the divots at the base.

When Deuce dipped lower, Marco arched back into his touch, accepting and inviting his tongue to delve and explore wet to his own, a hum of surprised pleasure escaping him at the change in pace. When Deuce searched his eyes for consent, he was met with hunger and a bottle snatched from the nightstand palmed to him. And when Deuce pressed inside with the hasty nerves of the inexperienced touching another so intimately for the first time, Marco _praised_ and _crooned_ with soft words of encouragement licked to the tongue pillowing gasping, surprised breaths.

Finally.

_Finally._

_But only if you’re sure._

Once again filled by fingers curling on his gentle direction, spreading him open, chasing a deep-rooted lust that had decayed after the loss of his past love. Guiding Deuce through it, sliding hard together with a leg looped tight around hips to keep him close, Marco sighed wanton into the heated air.

 _Whatever you want_ , had been the words he laved to Deuce's neck prior, fingers entangled in pale hair wild with the night's frantic misery, _if you want to cuddle, then we'll cuddle. If you want to talk, we'll talk. I'll follow your lead._

What Deuce wanted, apparently, was Marco stretched and eager. Supine. Knees bent to palms tucked to their pits, spread open to receive what was so anxiously pressed slick inside. Bent at the waist, already feeling like this was more than he could handle (wildly enough), the pressure and intense, blinding pleasure with each firm slide eroding the last dregs of guilt in that stifling, suffocating satisfaction that sex brought.

Hips stuttered to hips as calloused hands reached to grab, to hold, to drag close and kiss the face held clasped until lungs seized. Comforting, reassuring, breath hitching as the coil tightened like a thick band in the pit of his abdomen. Deuce's hand was snatched and steered to Marco’s weeping erection, thumb pressed to slit, fingers wrapped around silky length to—

" _Deuce—_ "

—to bring Marco to orgasm, body shaking and sigh leveling hot and sated with a satisfied arch from the mattress, coloring his skin with his release—

"— _I love you—_ "

—and Deuce followed him into that moment of bliss where there was nothing but touches, and smiles, and shaky laughter of muted disbelief at what they had just done, mind quiet for just a moment longer.

* * *

All seemed well following the breakdown. On the surface, at the very least. Deuce tried – did he _ever_ try – to cover up his flat mood, to shine bright in an attempt to reflect Ace back at Marco, it sometimes felt like. Sertraline was started, and Deuce’s mood took a hit before showing signs of improving, as expected.

The sex slowed as a side-effect, Deuce’s libido dampened down from rampant and urgent to something suggestive of _normal_. The fears that Marco wouldn’t be sated – that he would now find his partner boring, unfulfilling, and inadequate – were squashed down under long hours of cuddling under dim candlelight, kisses caught to hairlines and fingers delicate to cheeks.

He was never off Marco’s mind, the rabbit in the moon now forever caught tight in the clutches of the phoenix, wrested from his lonely pit of despair to fly curves along the skyline under brilliant liquid starlight and diamonds.

Or so Marco had believed.

Either Deuce was a fantastic actor, or Marco was just too ready to accept whatever he wished to, whatever Deuce wanted him to see. Yet again.

 _This isn’t right_ , he had argued with himself that horrible, blood-chilling afternoon when Deuce was attending the medical bay. Captain or not, Marco had shirked duties to head back to their shared room to snatch up the little pot of pills that Deuce had left behind (deliberately?), noting how he once again didn’t have them on him at breakfast. In his drawer lay the notebook under the tablets, worn at the edges and wrinkled along the spine from hours upon hours of intensive work.

 _This really isn’t right_ , he had insisted as he lifted the book with the medication, flicking it open with mounting curiosity, the forbidden prize finally in his hands after spending months watching Deuce pour over it.

Only there was no story, as previously informed.

There was nothing written down about grand adventures, or plot ideas, or – Marco’s mind whirled with the suddenly sickening sugar-sweet memory of it – birds and bunnies and stoves and fucking.

Inside, there was nothing but Ace.

Memories of Ace. Thoughts of Ace. Conversations that had happened and conversations that he now wished he could hold. A transcript of sorts that documented the last thing he had said to his previous captain, recorded with meticulous care.

Prose tucked neat between lines of poetry nearer the back that increased in erraticity, script turning sloppy and revealing a gradually declining state of mind the further Marco read.

The stain of what had to be tears. The crinkle of a page that may have just survived being torn from its brothers.

Ace, over and over.

Ace, from cover to cover.

Nothing pertaining to Marco.

Nothing suggestive of a man who had ever had the slightest inclination to recover at all.

* * *

The confrontation was wretched and miserable, causing Marco to once again lament with deep honesty his inability to heal the mind as he could the flesh. Deuce apologised profusely for his secret method of coping – for this was what it was, after all; the siphoning of poison that would have otherwise choked. It didn’t mean, Deuce had insisted with feverish desperation clinging tight to Marco’s arms, that he had lied about his feelings for him. There was love there – of _course_ there was – love that he battled with and love that he tried to accept via the act of remembering Ace as he did.

“I had no idea,” Marco admitted, once again baring himself to his own blindness when it concerned Deuce, “that you weren’t coping. Not to this extent. Not this whole time.”

Again, apologies – not for keeping his own wounds open and visceral, but for inadvertently hurting Marco. Again, no regard for himself in what was possibly the most disturbing display of self-sacrifice that Marco had come across.

Marco could deal with whatever feelings this wrung from him. What he couldn’t deal with was the realisation that behind every smile, every touch, every kiss and every stuttered moan of bone-deep pleasure, Deuce had had to counter that with _this_.

No number of apologies would suffice. The fact would remain that Marco had failed.

* * *

The smiles stopped. The cuddling ceased. No matter how hard Marco tried, Deuce refused to let himself be loved how Marco yearned to. Every touch to his skin – each gentle kiss placed to his cheeks, ears, lips – saw Deuce recoil and darken perceptibly, back turned resolutely in his direction as shoulders shook with repressed sobs.

Until—

“Do you regret,” Marco asked into the darkness one night, once again attempting to circle an arm around Deuce’s waist, to melt the ice he encased his heart in through phoenix fire that could not burn, “everything that we have? That we’ve done?”

It was a question to which Marco didn’t wish to know the answer. A question whose answer he knew, surely.

But—

“No,” came the fragile whisper followed by the barely perceptible press of shoulders back into Whitebeard’s mark, “and that’s what I can’t stand. I want to regret you.”

Silently rolling to face Marco at last, _at long, long last_ after too many nights of watching his form grow more distant to the call of utter torment, Deuce cupped his face and kissed him hard.

“I’m sorry, Marco.” Spoken almost reverently, caressing his face like the blind learning the contours and ridges of the features of their beloved, voice drenched in emotion of the likes that had begun to be regulated to the past by now. “I love you.”

He believed _this,_ at least.

So Marco held him as gently as spun glass, making love to him once again to drown in the upcurve of his bitten back moans, taking all that Deuce was prepared to offer from places Marco hadn’t known he possessed. Rolling into him along the rhythm of a heartbeat serene as dawn breaking over calm waters, lifting him with a hand pressed to lumbar spine to haul upwards and hold in his lap, reminiscent of the first time they had loved rather than fucked. Hands grasped hips, tongue licked to tongue, fingers skittered along ridges of spine and clutched at the base of the skull to pull close, to press into, to melt and to merge and to _feel_.

And then to _feel_ , once cleaned up and held tight in Deuce’s arms under sheets that suddenly bore down too heavy…

To feel like this was a form of farewell, somehow.

* * *

The upturn was unnerving, in all honesty. The suddenness with which Deuce found his smile again was perplexing and jarring, and despite how wonderful it was to see him beaming across the mess hall at lunch again and pull out an inviting chair, it left Marco chilled.

How he was met in bed after a hard day to kisses and soft touches – a promise that perhaps the meds had finally kicked in, or maybe the poison had been fully bled out through his tears and fury at himself. The notebook was completed and burned, returning his thoughts and his suffering to the flames that had licked so incessantly at his mind since the moment he had first been found half dead by Ace on Sixis.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” Deuce said as he pressed his face into Marco’s collarbone, “I found a way to stop thinking about Ace. A way to let it all go.”

“Have you really?” Marco asked, the statement catching him off guard entirely – see? Deuce really could do it if he tried. “How?”

Deuce hesitated before replying, pausing on his grand reveal. “In the most selfish way imaginable,” was his cryptic answer. “You won’t like it.”

“You’re at perfect liberty to be selfish once in a while,” Marco spoke into Deuce’s hair, eyes sliding closed to the calming familiarity of his scent, “whatever it is, I won’t be mad.”

Silence. For a moment, Marco wandered if perhaps Deuce had fallen asleep. But then—

“Marco?”

“Hm?”

“Thank you,” the words hissed to his skin made it prickle uncomfortably without warning, “for loving me.”

He was gone by the time Marco woke the next morning, mind taking a few seconds to catch up and remember that his partner had taken a half shift in the early hours as an act of good will, an apology for weeks ago when he had reacted badly to his subordinate’s question about his name. So Marco rose, stretched, and made his way to the medical bay after dressing to take over from Deuce for the next eight hours.

Handover was done quickly; Marco was pulled into a fierce kiss that had him gasping, the pull on his heart so tight that he couldn’t resist seizing Deuce by the shoulders to deepen, to explore what he had mapped so thoroughly already, and to taste what he could never tire of. He had missed him during his sleep – that was the only explanation for his intrinsic _need_ to feel Deuce against him as such.

Alarmed, Deuce broke free only to hold up a palm, slapping it to Marco’s in a high-five accompanied by a wry grin. There was something in his eyes that almost had Marco asking what was happening, whether he had missed something fundamental and urgent, because despite the apparent swagger with which Deuce moved away from him, he seemed like he was about to topple over into another episode of harsh sobs and dodged affection.

With a deep breath, a step away that turned into a turn on his heel, Deuce said, “see you on the other side, Marco,” before leaving him to pull on his white coat over his clothes.

Leaving Marco with the hot, fluttery sensation that he should chase after him and ignore his duties.

But he didn’t.

He was writing a report when the wave crashed down around him, his observation haki that was tied to Deuce’s presence suddenly _snapped_ as aptly as a rubber band pulled too taut. Marco recoiled, hand slapping to his chest as breathlessness hit, a void suddenly gaping like a chasm in his heart to the pounding of blood in his ears.

Something was hideously wrong.

He could no longer feel Deuce’s presence further down the ship, indicating that he had been in the bedroom.

Marco ran.

Marco ran, and he slid to a halt outside their bedroom with blurred vision and a heart hammering so frantically it may as well have been attempting to communicate directly with Deuce’s, slamming into his ribs in its frenzied question of _where have you gone?_

The door creaked upon opening it – unlocked.

The smell of iron flooded Marco’s senses immediately, filling him with the terrible sensation of stepping into theater during a procedure gone dramatically wrong.

But this was his room, and there was Deuce in bed, under the sheets, under the—

_Sheets soaked in blood. Too much blood. Fatal._

Ringing in his ears. Sight reduced to pinholes. His hands clammy; his cognition receded; the dull haze of shock sending him stumbling forwards to drop to his knees, to stare at the sodden sheets.

Marco ripped them back without thinking, shaking violently where he knelt. Great, deep lacerations from elbow to wrist marked Deuce’s deathly pale inner forearms, a dagger – no, a kitchen knife – just beside one open palm, the other clutching a sheet of paper. Marco touched his face and was greeted with warmth.

Warmth—

Blue flames ignited in an instant, flaring huge and brilliant in his sudden haste to heal, to finally be useful and to finally have some use in Deuce’s life—to bring him back, to mend, to start with—with—

Checking his pulse in his neck, fingertips trembling against his right carotid.

Nothing.

A wrist pulled over his sweating forehead; his thighs seized and shook so terribly that Marco had to crawl up to sit on the bed rather than kneel beside it.

“ _Don’t,”_ his plea came strangled and choked as he cupped Deuce’s face – still warm, still _alive?_ No—too late, too _late_ , the lingering heat fading quickly, “you’re not—you can’t be—I’ll—I’ll—”

He’d what?

He tried anyway.

First point of call – the deep wounds. Marco ripped his shirt to shreds, gasping for breath that didn’t want to oxygenate him, his head swimming with the threat of sudden syncope. First arm raised; tourniquet applied above elbow. Second repeated. He couldn’t stop shaking. He realised too late – as always, as _fucking always_ when it came to Deuce – that the wounds no longer bled anyway.

Second action – restart the heart. Yes. Wait. _No._ Almost. Restart the heart and – Marco almost bit through his lip to stop it from shaking so hard – and heal the wounds. Simultaneously.

He couldn’t. He needed a second pair of hands. There wasn’t time to run or call for help; Deuce’s lips were blue already, white skin beginning to—

How long had passed between incision and the sudden loss of Deuce’s presence within him? How long? Minutes? Too long. What now?

Marco balled his fists together and slammed them into Deuce’s chest with enough force to crack a rib on impact.

 _Good_.

Again.

A second crack.

Sweat streaming down his temples, he began the rhythmic pounding against shattered bone and failed heart, concentrating, counting.

Thirty presses.

Tilt chin – pinch nose – seal the mouth with his own and breathe out to inflate the lungs.

Pause. Repeat.

Nothing.

Their final kiss.

The morbid thought sent Marco growling, snarling feral, _refusing_ to let go, to give up, to acknowledge how limp Deuce was when moved, how the heart denied him the chance to bring him back, to fix this, to _stop Deuce from finding peace in the most selfish way imaginable—_

He had meant suicide.

If he couldn’t move past Ace – if he couldn’t breathe free while the memory of him held him tight in its selfish grasp and forbade him to recover – why not join him?

Why not?

He had.

Marco refused to let him stay there.

So he tried again with one hand this time, the other shrouded in flames grasped so tight around one arm he felt both ulnar and radius snap. Then healed. _Healed._ He could heal a body – the lacerations repaired slowly – if he could heal those then why not restart the heart?

Marco’s palm to Deuce’s rapidly bruising chest flared into cyan, directed at the heart.

Nose pinched – more air delivered. Again. Again. _Again_.

But after twenty minutes – after twenty long, agonising minutes of sweat dripping from his face… of light-headedness borne from sharing his oxygen with his unresponsive partner… Marco was forced to face the fact that he could not heal a failed heart. He could not replenish so much blood quickly enough to flood the ventricles and arteries and brain back into something closer to life. The neurons remained dead, beyond his capacity to fix in another where he wouldn’t even break a sweat repairing within himself.

And as he sobbed – as he held Deuce’s body to his chest and rocked him through the howling loss – Marco cursed himself, not for the first time, for his ability to live forever.

How he had no hope of taking his own life with the same knife that lay caked in brown blood, despite how he may wish to plunge it into his abdomen and let nature take its course.

The sun had taken the moon along with it at long last, leaving the phoenix’s world stark black, bleak, and deathly cold.

* * *

He took Deuce’s body to Sphinx alone, stomach churning the whole time he flew with him strapped to his back, the stiff weight of him a grim, sickening reminder of all that Marco had lost yet again.

There was no funeral, no family notified or crewmates present to help Marco dig the grave on the other side of Ace’s tombstone, facing out to sea rather than back down the slope that led to the village. There were none there to wipe the tears and sweat from Marco’s face as he dug alone, fixed on the grave lest his gaze travel to the body of his beloved and he lose himself all over again. No one to comfort. No one to help share the pain now that Deuce was gone.

Buried beside his true love; together at last in a place so beautiful that Marco, yet again, wished he had the strength to shackle himself with seastone and draw a line around his neck. He couldn’t do it, though. Not that he hadn’t tried, hadn’t slapped a cuff to his wrist upon pronouncing Deuce dead and pointed the blade at his navel before _screaming_ , throwing it, and destroying everything around him save for the bed.

The note that Deuce had died holding resided in Marco’s pocket, his final words scrawled across the paper there to haunt Marco for as long as he remembered him:

_I’m sorry for everything, but I don’t regret a single moment spent with you. I can only hope that you don’t come to regret me, either. I’ll keep him safe this time._

Marco again traced the tiny indents to the paper where the pen had ran, where Deuce’s life had bled out his end.

The rabbit of legend could finally join the man he had offered his life to.

And Marco was left alone.

Again.

Forever.

**Author's Note:**

> The first time I've ever killed someone in fiction and its Deuce, my absolute BABY. I love him so much and this is how I treat him.
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](https://aishitekuretearigatou.tumblr.com/) if you want to come say hi!
> 
> Comments and kudos let me know if I'm doing something right, and I always love your feedback!


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